The Price of Wisdom

by Shannah Jay

  'All the Kindred are in good health,' Katia said coldly to this voice with no body. 'Bodies and minds in balance, health in order.'

  The woman stared at Katia in amazement. 'Er - you speak standard, then?'

  Katia nodded. 'I'm Davred’s wife. Of course I speak standard. As he speaks our language, Sunril, which is descended from old standard, he says. May I stand up? I need to move my body around to complete its recovery.'

  'Please wear this monitor bracelet,' the diagnosis-system ordered and extruded a metallic mesh band two fingers wide.

  Katia looked at the woman and then at the bracelet, hesitating.

  'Would you mind?'

  'It won’t inject drugs into me as Robler did?' Katia asked.

  'No. It's just to - to watch what is happening in your body.'

  'It's a monitoring device only, then.' Katia could see the truth of this in the woman's face, so she slipped on the bracelet.

  The lieutenant swallowed in surprise at this further understanding of Confederation ways. 'You said Robler had injected you with drugs?'

  Katia nodded. 'Yes. He did it first when he captured me with the netwaves and brought me up to the satellite. And again, just recently, when he heard that your vessel had docked at the satellite. He’s become utterly insane. We call it discord madness. We've had a bad outbreak of it on our planet. No one can understand how it begins or spreads. Davred says it's been spreading through the Confederation, too.'

  The lieutenant was finding it harder and harder to come to terms with the idea that a primitive could understand everything so clearly and speak with such authority. Katia was wearing form-fitting garments made of animal leather, which no one on advanced worlds would now do, and her hair was tied back with a leather thong. And yet, she spoke more like a person from an advanced planet than a primitive. 'Do you - er - understand what we mean by the Confederation, then?' Jen asked hesitantly.

  Katia was getting irritated at being treated like an idiot. 'Yes, of course I do. My mind isn’t impaired and Davred has explained it all to us.'

  'And - does it not upset you that representatives of a more advanced civilisation have arrived at your planet?'

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  'It's only your judgement that you're more advanced in the Confederation than we of Sunrise.

  Davred no longer believes this. What would upset me would be if you tried to change what we of the Kindred are doing on our planet. But it doesn’t upset me to see you here. Indeed, Robler is in great need of your attentions and we shall be happy to have him removed from our skies.' She paused, as weariness tugged at her limbs, making them feel heavy, then added, 'Davred can explain everything about our planet and its needs to you better than I can.'

  Katia stopped as there was a noise in the corridor and another floater appeared, with Robler's body on it.

  The lieutenant turned to greet the people guiding it. 'What took you so long?'

  'He has an incredible resistance to stasis restraint. He'd nearly escaped when we got there and we had the devil's job putting him under again.'

  'That's not possible.'

  'Well, it just happened, possible or not.'

  'He is possessed of the Serpent,' Katia said. 'Watch his forehead.'

  But her warning came too late, for as the darkness appeared on his forehead, Robler surged up from the float with a roar of fury and lunged towards the nearest figure. The mark of the Serpent grew larger and spread across his whole face as he snatched the stasis device and turned it on his former captors.

  He left only the two women untouched by it.

  'You shall not coerce me!' His voice was thickened and had a deep growl to it. His head was swaying from side to side again. Katia at least recognised the presence of the Serpent within him.

  The diagnosis-system began to sound warning chimes and to request that someone capture and restrain the violently disturbed person. Immediately. Immediately. Immediately.

  The lieutenant stared at Robler in disbelief. 'That's impossible!' she whispered. 'You can't resist stasis hold. No one can.'

  With a sideways swipe of his hand he knocked her out of the way and lurched towards Katia. He seemed to be having trouble controlling his limbs, but the handweapon was held steadily enough in his hand and when Jen crawled backwards from him across the floor, he laughed aloud and immobilised her. 'You can stay there, for the moment! If I can, I'll come back later and take you with me.' It would be better to have several women from whom to breed his new race of Serpent-inspired rulers, once he'd taken charge of the rescue vessel.

  He grabbed Katia's arm and neither her physical struggles nor her attempts to impose a Compulsion to let go had any effect on him, so she abandoned the effort. She could feel the Serpent throbbing with suppressed power within Robler's body and it was taking all her energy to keep the evil within him from creeping into her own body and soul from the hand that grasped her arm. So fierce was the struggle to prevent it invading her that she could make no further attempts to fight Robler physically as he dragged her along the corridor towards the hold.

  Around them was a blare of noise as the com-system called, 'Danger! Danger! Danger!' and kept making a shrill siren-like noise. But there was no one to answer it. And by the time it decided to flood the satellite with sleep gas, Robler had gone.

  In the hold, the satellite's crew were still standing motionless under stasis restraint. Robler threw back his head and laughed. 'Look at them! Fools! They're all fools! There's no one left to help you now, Katia Hollunby. No one at all. And even if the Serpent has been defeated down on the planet, it shall be my privilege to carry my Dread Lord across the universe to more fertile ground.'

  He thrust Katia into the shuttle and secured her in the seat with the restraint harness normally used for injured people. She continued to resist the dark power within him, even when he laid his two hands on her temples, but it was a painful struggle.

  'Later, then!' he rasped and turned to guide the bubble across to the rescue vessel.

  It undocked and floated gently across towards a shape which was basically two concentric circles joined by passageways. Each area had its own life support systems. In one the crew lived. In the outer circle, by far the larger area, those whom they had rescued were stowed in stasis hold, it being the most economical way of carrying them back to Central.

  As soon as the shuttle docked at its mother vessel, Robler released Katia and jerked her to stand in front of him like a shield. 'If you try to fire at me,' he yelled to the com-system as he opened the door,

  'this handgun is set to blow the woman to pieces. And I can resist stasis hold, so don't think you can stop me. No one can stop me now. No one and nothing.' He roared with deep rumbling laughter as he moved forward.

  People with shocked faces backed away from the exit port as he shoved Katia through it.

  Suddenly the crew members tumbled to the ground like a set of fallen dolls.

  Katia felt something in the air, something that tugged at her consciousness. She abandoned her renewed struggles against Robler to fight the effects of the poisoned air on her body.

  Behind her, Robler stiffened for a moment, then laughed again. 'Sleep gas won't affect me, either.

  Or this woman. The Serpent is with me, and she's still got the skills of those hags.'

  His voice seemed twice as loud as usual and the evil within him burned so darkly next to Katia that it was all she could do to continue her resistance. She was weakening. She knew it, feared it.

  Robler started moving forward, still holding her in a painful grip and they met no one on their whole journey through the rescue vessel.

  'This place was not designed to resist invasion,' he chuckled. 'The fools are so confident of their superior technology that they haven't even considered the possibility that anyone could try to take it over.'

  Door screens were up, however, closed tightly in front of him. He blasted them out of existence, though whether it was with his handgun or with the gro
wing power of his evil, Katia could no longer tell.

  'You and I,' he muttered hoarsely as he waited for the fragments to settle as he blasted yet another heavy emergency door screen which should have barred his entrance, 'are going to found a new order.

  The order of the Serpent. And once I've subdued these cretins, I'll use their pain to feed my Dread Lord, who has been seriously depleted by those fools down on the planet. Then you will not be able to resist his call.'

  He laughed, another rumble of the madness that made his eyes and face seem wild and somehow no longer human. 'I can see how hard you're struggling, little Katia. Soon - soon you will no longer be able to resist my Dread Lord. And once you're his, I'll have you myself. I'm not too old to get sons or to raise them in Serpent ways.'

  He seemed not to care whether she responded or not, so she didn’t remind him that she had the

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  power to kill herself and wouldn’t hesitate to use it in the last resort.

  As they burst into the command room, men and women shrank back into one corner. With a loud triumphant bray of laughter, Robler strode across towards them. He barred them there with same variation of the stasis restraint that he had used to make a cell for Katia on the satellite. As their pleas for him to surrender, to let them help him, fell on deaf ears, he threw Katia to the floor in front of him.

  'You first!' he hissed, and his head began to writhe. 'You first, hag! In pain shall you submit to me.'

  Katia summoned up the dregs of her life energy to fend off another assault. For a moment that wasn’t nearly enough and she felt the evil surge up even more strongly, to lick along her bones from Robler's clutching hands. Then something joined in the struggle with her, some other strength and the evil began to recede.

  Around her the air started to glow and flicker.

  Robler let out a hoarse cry of rage and blackness began to spread around him, rolling forward like a cloud until it met the brightness around Katia.

  The group of Confex officers in the corner could only goggle and stare as they watched the impossible happen right in front of them.

  Katia suddenly realised where this golden glow came from. 'Herra!' Her voice was filled with pain.

  'Oh, Herra, is that indeed you?'

  From an unfathomable distance, she heard the words 'Dear child.' Only Herra had ever called her that. Only Herra's life spirit could feel quite like this, so bright and clean and beautiful.

  There was another whisper of sound. 'Terraccalliss is here, too, little Katia. Now, allow us to deal with this last core of evil.'

  The brightness began to increase and where it met the darkness there were flashes of light. From deep below the audible sound scale came a rumbling torrent of pain and fury mixed. The whole vessel shuddered and throbbed with the struggle.

  Katia watched helplessly for a moment, then felt another mental touch. 'Davred!' It was a whisper, but as she felt her husband, she also felt the power of his being, the power of the Kindred down below her, augmented by Petur and Taslyn. She allowed this to channel through her, to add its strength to that golden glow.

  The darkness began to retreat, until it was crushed to a penumbra around Robler's motionless figure. His eyes were glaring with utter madness, a hissing noise was issuing from his mouth and as he tried to press his hands together in the Serpent's salute, a deep gut-wrenching groan came from his agonised rictus of a mouth.

  Then there was a flash of brilliant light and a pealing bell-like sound, followed by a feeling of transcendent joy as the darkness vanished, utterly destroyed.

  Those of the Confederation stared in disbelief as Robler fell back on the floor, to shrivel into a foetal huddle of desiccated flesh.

  The words 'Farewell, dear child!' echoed in Katia's ears and the brightness, too, began to ebb from the control room.

  When it had gone, Katia sank to her knees, unable to stand, for she felt utterly weak and drained. It was a moment or two before she could drag herself across the floor. She must not allow herself to lose consciousness. She had to check something first. One touch confirmed that Robler was indeed dead and she sighed with relief. You could never mistake that look. But there was a brittleness to his body and a last lingering imprint of evil around it that made her reluctant to stay near him.

  She spent a moment or two on a brief Discipline of Minor Renewal, then pulled herself to her feet again and went slowly and shakily across the room to pick up the fallen stasis restraint device.

  At the barred area she stopped. 'How do I free you?'

  'Just pass me the device,' Geeling said.

  She did so and he pressed a pattern into one corner of it. The semi-opaque bars vanished.

  As the command team left their prison, Geeling approached Katia very hesitantly as if she were a wild animal that might bite. 'What exactly did you do to stop Robler?'

  'I called on my people and was answered,' Katia said. 'It was the power of goodness and joy.'

  His expression became sceptical.

  Katia grew angry. 'And my way worked, too, as yours did not, so don't scorn what you don't understand. You were quite unable to stop him, for all you machinery.' The way she said the last word made it an insult.

  Geeling flushed. She was right. Though how this could be possible, he didn’t understand. He would have to study the recordings very carefully later to find out how she had really done it.

  Katia felt so weary she wanted only to fall down and sink into the oblivion of sleep. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

  'I don't believe this!'

  They all turned round to stare at the man kneeling beside Robler's body.

  'What's the matter?' the Commander asked.

  His handgun hasn't been fired at all!' the man exclaimed.

  Geeling stalked across the room. 'That's not possible!' he said. 'It's just not possible. We all heard the explosions as he blasted his way through this ship.'

  After a few moments of stunned silence, as Geeling confirmed for himself that the weapon really hadn’t been fired, he swivelled round again to stare at Katia.

  'Your advanced machinery,' she said quietly, impelled by her Brother's voice whispering in her ear to reinforce the lesson, 'could not free you. My "primitive" methods could. I repeat: do not scorn what you do not understand.'

  The silence was now absolute.

  'Well, then,' she said, in quite another tone, the tone of an Elder Sister organising a group of bewildered novices, 'it would be best if you sent for my husband now. We need Davred and his Gifts to bridge the gaps between our understandings.'

  Only then, as she saw them nodding agreement, did she allow herself to slide down into the unconsciousness that her weary body had been craving ever since her struggle with Robler ended.

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  CHAPTER 31 SHADOWNS AND LIGHT

  As Davred was helping Quedras organise the final clear-up of the battlefield, he suddenly felt Katia's urgent need tugging at him.

  'Petur! Taslyn! To me!' he called loudly, and the message was passed quickly along to the Healers'

  tents, where the two young people were augmenting the Healers' powers for those most desperately injured.

  They came running across the uneven ground, together now as they had never been before.

  Davred held out his hands and without a word, they grasped them. Then he concentrated on Katia, on pouring his life energy into her need. Somehow the Serpent was still fighting them from up on the satellite. The three of them managed a sharing, melding into - into union with - 'Herra!' he gasped.

  'Son of my soul,' came back a whisper of thought, then another encounter with a last surge of the Serpent evil began.

  Again, Petur and Taslyn's amazing capacity to augment another's powers had its effect and they could feel the evil raging above them in the sky as it was resisted for a second time.

  When the darkness had been defeated and the evil totally annihilated, Davred felt Katia's soft love wrap him rou
nd, then he sank back with tears on his cheeks - for that encounter had also been their personal farewell to Herra.

  Now her spirit was gone, truly gone from them.

  Taslyn looked at Petur as Davred bowed his head. 'The love between Katia and Davred is wonderful,' she said softly.

  He nodded, holding out one hand. 'Could we - try to achieve that, do you think?'

  She smiled and took his hand. 'Yes. We could try.' For love was as infectious as evil.

  ***

  During the early evening there was a whining sound in the air above Therak Bowl. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked around, puzzled. A transcap came whizzing across the sky.

  Those who had seen trancaps before tensed and stared as it hovered some distance above them, not crashing to earth as the earlier ones had.

  'If you people up there are trying to create mischief again, you won't succeed,' Davred said aloud.

  'Who has sent it?' Alaran asked from beside him.

  'I don't know. Someone from the satellite, probably.'

  'I sense no evil in it this time,' Alaran said.

  Erlic slipped across to join them. He and his brother had hardly been two paces away from one another since the battle ended. Both had emerged from it unscathed, and yet they still radiated sadness.

  And Erlic seemed even more awkward in his human body than before, shuffling along like a very old man.

  'There is no evil in it,' he said softly. 'The false Avatar has been destroyed and the others up there on the satellite are not evil, just - bewildered.'

  'Permission to land,' said a voice.

  'Permission granted,' replied Davred.

  The transcap floated down and landed gently near him. It was, he realised with relief, quite a small one, much too small for a human to ride in it, and it had no return jets. When it split open, he said, 'Ah!

  It's just a com-unit!' and moved forward more confidently towards it.

  Others of the Kindred came quietly up to stand in a semi-circle behind him, ready to lend their support and life energy, if needed. They were all battered and exhausted after that dreadful day, but if one of them was in need, then the others would automatically do what they could to help.